A SEAT at THE TABLE: Helping business leaders grow their influence

Getting into the fashion industry as a designer is not easy.  Staying in the industry can be even more difficult.  Especially nowadays when companies are facing so much uncertainty. That’s gotten many designers wondering what alternatives might be available for them.   If you love the fashion industry but are looking for a way to pivot from some the industry’s traditional careers, then this is the...

What does it take to create a business selling very high end, exclusive products online - without any physical retail presence? How do you manage to standout from all of the noise and chaos on social media, let alone establish the level of trust necessary to convince customers, who are an ocean away, to spend tens of thousands of dollars on something they have not been able to touch or examine? I’...

When we think of eBay we usually think  ‘that’s where you sell all of those things from your closets, basement or garage that you no longer want. It’s that auction site.' That was how eBay started, but a lot has changed since then.  Today it is a fast growing massive marketplace where savvy sellers can set up their own online stores.   Consider this: In 2020, eBay’s global gross merchandise v...

E-commerce is a tech driven channel and so when retailers look to enhance their online performance the first place they look is for more technology solutions. However, the consumer is still a human being - whether shopping offline or online.  So connecting with them on a more personal basis is proving to be as important as the functionality that tech provides. For a growing number of retailers, th...

Never in recent times has leadership been put to the test the way it has during the past year. Suddenly managers found themselves not only facing unprecedented business conditions, but they also needed to work with teams that were now working from home. Navigating these challenging circumstances was the perfect opportunity for executives to develop new leadership skills.  To learn fast, take risks...

There once was a time when brands would only dabble in emerging markets.  Most brands avoided them.  Too complicated.  Too risky. Not enough potential revenue to justify the investment.  But that’s starting to change - and that change is being driven by two key factors. Traditional developed markets are highly competitive (every brand wants to be in these markets) and they are mature markets - mak...

Today a strong brand can be a company’s most valuable asset. Companies who’ve done branding right have racked up massive brand valuations like Apple at $263 billion, Amazon at $254 billion,  Microsoft at $140 billion … and it’s not just tech brands.  Coca-cola weighs in at $64 billion, Louis Vuitton at $47 billion, Nike at $39 billion and Walmart at $29 billion.  And that’s only the top of the lis...

Learn more about SPINEXPO:  www.spinexpo.com Connect with Luca Suriano:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucsur/ A Seat at The Table website:  seat.fm The Current Situation in Sourcing:     https://bit.ly/current_situtation SEND US A MESSAGE Visit A Seat at The Table' s website at https://seat.fm

If you’re a brand looking for serious growth opportunities than chances are you’ve been looking at China’s dynamic consumer market. Never before has there been a market that has offered so much opportunity.  1.3 billion people,  a huge rapidly increasing middle class, and e-commerce sales figures so massive that it almost sounds as if you’re making them up. While the opportunities are great, so ar...

Regardless of where you live, Amazon probably plays a role in your life.  For many of us, Amazon has  become the go-to place when we need something - and want it delivered - or when it’s something we can’t find locally.  Or maybe we’re looking for product reviews. For most retailers, more often than not, it’s the 800 ton gorilla that has either eaten your business - or is about to! We all know tha...

It’s difficult to talk about apparel without also talking about materials. And that quickly leads to conversations about sustainability.  Not so much about the need to use more sustainable materials. - most people are pretty clear on that.  The challenge is how to check all of the boxes - and there are a lot! - that brands need to check these days. I’m Jane Singer, and welcome to A Seat at The Tab...

If you’re like most of us, you’ve seen video meetings go from a temporary measure to become part of the ‘new normal’.  Love them or leave them, Zoom, Teams, Skype and other apps are here to stay.  So smart leaders are adapting and conquering what is really just one more step in an overall migration to all things digital. So how do we  bridge what is a clear divide between in person and online?  Wh...

As retail looks forward to returning to normal, most of the attention is focused on which brands will be opening stores and what the new omni-channel strategies might look like. However, we might overlooking what else needs to change.  Will post-pandemic retail simply be a rollout of they we ‘always did things’.  Or will brands reimagine new ways to connect with consumers so they can drive both sa...

Now with the vaccine rollout seriously underway in many countries, a growing number of brands have solid reasons to feel optimistic  that retail could start to rebound.  At worst, there is a bit more clarity about the future.  To get a 'behind the scenes' look at what retail might look like in the coming months, I reached out to Ariel Schuster, Vice Chairman at Newmark, a leading propert...

E-commerce has  continued to see strong year on year growth, even before the pandemic accelerated it to new heights. While sales growth might start to level off as we head back to more normal times, few doubt that e-commerce will remain an essential retail channel. One of the backbones of e-commerce is logistics. It takes incredible agility and resiliency to be able to provide merchandise on-deman...

When most people talk about trendy fashion they’re usually referring to international designer brands or cutting edge street fashion. Few would be looking to a 120 year-old image wear company whose heritage is supplying t-shirts with team logos or polos embroidered with corporate branding.    However they would be overlooking a company that has pivoted to serve the fast growing demand for show sto...

Today, brand value is one of the most valuable assets a company can have. For many, it’s proving to be their only asset. Yet most companies don’t really know how to build a high value brand.  Others simply don’t see brand building as a long term investment. The few who have strategically - and often painstakingly - invested in building a brand have reaped the rewards.  From Apple, with its trillio...

Logistics has moved from the backroom to the boardroom.  The demand for tighter control over inventory as heightened awareness of the critical role that logistics is playing in creating more responsive and more resilient supply chains. That logistics is a lynchpin in top functioning supply chains has been made painfully clear during the past six to eight months as even the best service providers w...

Sourcing executives are increasingly challenged with being faster, more agile, more sustainable, more transparent - oh, and also finding better products that their brand’s customers will want to buy. They are also facing a massive range of new technologies, that if implemented strategically, could be game changing.  That is if they can get the team on board. If we connect all of the dots,  what mi...

Africa has been rising to the top of many buyers’  ‘need to look into’ list. However the vastness of the continent - and the diversity amongst regions - makes this a daunting task. A new platform aims to make this easier by gathering key supplier information and organising it in an easy to search database. Not only that, the platform provides an entire ecosystem that ties in support services from...

In recent years retail has gotten a bad rap - especially fashion retail. Too often stores have fallen into a slump, neglected by management’s shift in attention to building up their e-commerce channels.  And just as often because brands have too many stores and too little revenue to maintain them all properly. That’s led to a rash of retail closures in many key markets around the world. But is ret...

In an era where technology plays an increasingly dominant role and companies are being told ‘digitise or die’. Is there still a role for human talent? And if so, for how long? From major advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, to the growing use of self-service platforms at retail, where do people fit into Industry 4.0? Can machines and bots do it all?  If they can - is this the...

After a year that has been particularly unkind to apparel, many of us are wondering what  the fate of the category might be.   Consumers are spending, but just not on apparel.  Even before the pandemic, many brands were struggling. So where are the opportunities for fashion brands?  And what do we need to do move away from relying on discounts and promotions?   Today I’m speaking with Glenn McMaho...

Most brands want to be more sustainable, but they also need to meet price targets and also create products that consumers want to buy. At the same, mills and manufacturers around the world are often sitting on mountains of dead stock - rolls of perfectly good fabric that is destined to be dumped into landfill. My guest today was able to successfully connect the dots between these two scenarios and...

Everyone is looking for the next big thing. It turns out, that the next big thing is huge!  We’re talking about space.  And in the New Space Age the opportunities are of galactic proportions. If you’re like me you, when someone mentions the Space industry you probably think astronauts, rockets, planets and maybe even extraterrestrials. Today, the Space industry is all that (well maybe not the extr...